March 22, 2017 - 12:00 ( Brasília )


Drone-catchers emerge on a new aerial frontier

Versão em português







Jaz Banga, co-founder and chief executive of Airspace Systems, stands next to an Interceptor autonomous aerial drone

Jamming the radio signals to the drone does not always work, either. Drones differ from “remote-controlled” aircraft because  they can fly to pre-set coordinates autonomously. The fastest drones can reach 150 miles per hour, too quick for human pilots flying another drone to catch.


"We are creating a very primitive brain of an insect, a dragonfly," Bar-Nahum said. "It wakes up, sees the world and doesn't really know where it is. But it has goals to capture the other drone, and it's planning a path in the world and knows how to move through the world."



The business model is challenging too. Currently, only law enforcement officials have the authority to interfere with another drone's flight. Regulations also require a certified pilot to stand ready to intervene in any commercial drone flight and keep a line-of-sight view of the aircraft.



Detection and destruction




"Most of the market is going to be detection, something like a burglar alarm," Lamprecht said.




"The swarm of drones is going to be the threat," said Blades.

Beyond that, catching drones incurs expense and complication when simpler measures might do. Dedrone's Lamprecht gives an example from a German customer that makes cars.

At its test track, the customer wanted to protect new car designs from drones' prying eyes. When Dedrone detects an intrusion, the car's driver hits a dashboard button to fire a fog bomb to obscure the car.


For Airspace, perfecting a drone-hunting machine than can see - and chase - on its own is not as crazy as it may seem.

"This is an old ambition. You can read about it in Jules Verne or Aldous Huxley," said Bar-Nahum. "That's why autonomous movement is the next decade for me."